Re-Imagining Mary: a Journey Through Art to the Feminine Self Copyright © 2009 Mariann Burke First Edition

Re-Im a g i n i n g Ma r y Re-Im a g i n i n g Ma r y

A Jo u r n e y t h r o u g h Ar t t o t h e Fe m i n i n e Se l f

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Acknowledgements i x

Fo r e w o r d b y Na n c y Qu a l l s -Co r b e t t x i

Introduction 1

Re v i s i t i n g Fr a An g e l i c o ’s An n u n c i a t i o n 13

Pi c t u r i n g t h e An n u n c i a t i o n 37

Di s c o v e r i n g Mo t h e r Ma r y 73

Im a g i n g Ma r y a s Te m p l e 99

So u n d i n g t h e St o n e Dr e a m 127

Co d a 143

Bi b l i o g r ap h y 151

In d e x 159 For Bobbie, Kathleen, Patti, and Sheila and in memory of E. J. Greco i x

acknowledgements

I am grateful to many who helped to bring this work to comple- tion by reading part or all of the developing manuscript and by offering suggestions, encouragement and support: Paola Bio- la, Aileen Callahan, Judith and Dennis O’Brien, Anne Baring, Bob Baer, CSP, Cornelia Dimmitt, Jane Schaberg, John Peck, Ed Burke, Gail O’Donnell, RSCJ, Aline Wolf, Johannes Schatz- mann, Margarita Cappelli, RSCJ, Helga Schier, Meg Guider, OSF, Russell Holmes, Daniel Burke, FSC, Kathrin Asper, Susan Tiberghien, Fred R. Gustafson and David Oswald. I thank the staff at Bapst Library, Boston College, especially Adeane Breg- man and Arlene Feinberg, who generously offered help with art references. For their fine editing I thank Joseph Pagano and Patty Cabanas. Finally I am most grateful to Mel Mathews for his cooperative spirit, sensitivity, and patient guidance throughout the process. x i f o r e w o r d

For two millennia throughout all Christendom the image of the Blessed Virgin Mary has been adored. From the lofty world’s cathedrals to the smallest Christmas crèche that adorns a humble family dwelling her representation is present. Anthems are sung to her, voices are raised to praise her name, her very being. And yet standing back with some reflection, are we consciously aware of a deeper, more significant meaning of Mary? In reimagining Mary, may we broaden our understanding of the profound psychological value her image holds for us. Some years ago I was privileged to visit the caves at Lascaux in France to view the magnificent, bigger than life, prehistoric cave paintings. These depictions of noble beasts were majestic; some only in outline while others were painted in intricate detail with pigments made from minerals of the earth. I physically felt as I sensed this deep underground cave that it was permeated by the instinctual spiritual wisdom of twenty thousand years. It was as though the cave paintings were primitive man’s first expression of his soul. A numinous sense surrounded me as I knew myself to be in this holy place. It was not so surprising after such an awe-inspiring experience that I had a dream the following night. The dream was this: I was once again in the cave of Lascaux filled with wonder- ment while viewing the paintings of wild animals on the walls and ceiling. Directly in front of me on the cave wall I began to see a bare outline of a figure as if scratched into the wall. And then the outline became emboldened in black charcoal as if painted by unseen hands. While I continued to look with amazement, the figure began to take on more definition and color. I then realized I was viewing the image of the Virgin Mary… there on the wall of a most primordial setting. I awoke from the dream with a start. As my conscious mind was reviewing the detail, the image of Mary created more than a little discomfort within me. I realized I had envisioned, in sym- x i i bolic form, the archetypal aspects of the divine feminine nature. There in the earth’s womb-cave, ever so deep and dark in the realm of the collective unconscious, was the image of the Great Mother, which we most often in our Christian culture depict in our mind’s eye as the blessed Mother of Christ. We continue to look upon her image to understand her meaning in our modern day life, aspects of the feminine in our own psychologies. Through the centuries the idealization of the blessed Vir- gin perhaps has inspired more masterpieces of art and great architecture than any living figure, as author Mariann Burke beautifully explores in the following pages. We see her as the youthful, blissful and serene Madonna, her adoring gaze on her infant child. Her slender fingers caress the child, as her long, slim neck turns gracefully arching downward. Or we see her as the Mater Dolorosa, the Pieta, her face wracked with pain and anguish or with a far away gaze of contemplative surrender. We also know her from myths and works of art as the Queen of Heaven seated on her throne or standing on the cres- cent moon with the milk flowing freely from her breast forming the Milky Way. We know of the lofty cathedrals painstakingly crafted throughout centuries that were erected in her honor and which bear her name. There is no question that her image has inspired artisans throughout all Christendom as did her image evoke prayers and supplications from kings and peasants alike. In our Christian mythology it is Mary’s image that may be experienced as the archetypal mother goddess, the good breast, comforting and nurturing. Pope Pius XII’s proclamation in 1950 that Mary was taken up, body and soul, into heaven could not have been received with more understanding and joy than by Dr. Carl Jung. He writes: When in 1938 I originally wrote this paper, [Psychological As- pect of the Mother Archetype] I naturally did not know that twelve years later the Christian version of the mother archetype would be elevated to the rank of a dogmatic truth. The Christian “Queen of Heaven” has, obviously, shed all her Olympian qualities except for her brightness, goodness and x i i i

eternality; and even her human body, the thing most prone to gross material corruption, has put on an ethereal incorrupt- ibility…The relationship to the earth and to matter is one of the inalienable qualities of the mother archetype. So when a figure that is conditioned by this archetype is represented as having been taken up into heaven, the realm of the spirit, this indicates a union of earth and heaven or of matter and spirit.1 Our ancestors had already expressed in their paintings prais- ing Nature, as the caves of Lascaux demonstrate, this longing for union of matter and spirit. However, these primitive paintings today are becoming endangered, if not destroyed, by the presence of a pernicious fungus obscuring or even obliterating them. We, too, in our present day culture have all but lost the true image of Mary. It has become obscure to us through in- sidious means. Through patriarchal edicts Mary has been relegated to the adoring or grieving mother, the mother who was declared a virgin, meaning asexual. We often take her story literally, and ignore the symbolic, the psychological realm. She has been relegated to less than the whole of the Great Mother archetype, the feminine reflection that is sensuous and fertile, an icon of woman who is earthy and who is one-in-herself. As author and analyst Mariann Burke wisely guides us and reawakens us to a renewed vision of Mary, we consciously begin to understand the extent of what her image embodies.

Na n c y Qu a l l s -Co r b e t t

1 CW, Vol. 9i, pars. 195-197. (CW refers throughout to The Collected Works of C.G. Jung.) Re-Imagining Mary A Journey through Art to the Feminine Self

Painting has within it a divine power. —Battista Alberti

This book is about meeting Mary in image and imagination. It is about the Mary image mirroring both an outer reality and the inner feminine soul. My first meeting with Mary began with an experience of Fra Angelico’s Annunciation (Cortona). I cannot account for my unusual response to the image except to say that, at the time, over twenty years ago, I was studying Jungian psychology in Zürich, Switzerland and was then probably more disposed to respond to the imaginal world. One day as I sat in my basement apartment reflecting on a picture of his Annun- ciation, energy seemed to surge through me and lift me above myself. Tears brought me to deep center. It does not matter whether my experience was religious or psychic. The two are very similar since any religious experience always affects our psyche and changes it. It was as if I was re- stored to my truest self. This was an awakening for me, not an ecstasy. Far from leaving my body-self, I seemed to recover it. At the time I had no desire to study Art History or Iconography. Instead, wishing to stay in the world of the symbolic, I returned to the Biblical inspiration for the image in St. Luke. This is what St. Luke tells us about Jesus’ conception: In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the House of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. He went in and said to her, “Rejoice, so high- 2 Re-Imagining Mary

ly favored! The Lord is with you.” She was deeply disturbed by these words and asked herself what this greeting could mean, but the angel said to her, “Mary, do not be afraid; you have won God’s favor. Listen! You are to conceive and bear a son, and you must name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High.” (Luke:1:26-38) I had read this passage many times but it was soon to take on richer meaning. Since we know nothing of Jesus’ conception and birth, leg- end and myth “fill in.” The word ‘myth’ comes from the ancient Greek word ‘mythos’ meaning ‘word.’ Both ‘logos’ and ‘mythos’ mean ‘word.’ While ‘logos’ refers to rational thinking, ‘mythos’ describes poetic or intuitive thinking. “Biblical accounts of Je- sus’ birth and resurrection are ‘mythos.’ Biblical historical facts of his life are ‘logos.’ Both are true.”2 Myths or mythos express truth closer to life’s meaning than facts. Myths resonate in the soul. For example, stories about the quest for the Grail resonate with all “searchers.” We long to experience the Holy, the numinous. The Annunciation, the birth in the stable, the shepherds’ adoration, and the journey to Egypt, all of these give valuable insights into our personal spiritual journey. And the artists who have painted these scenes have provided us with “windows” into depths unknown perhaps even to them. Some of these “windows” would eventually open for me into other images of Mary, as Virgin Mother, Black Madonna, and Wisdom Sophia. But, at that moment down in my basement study, I was captivated only by the Annunciation. I longed to see other artists’ versions of the scene. In Milan, Arezzo or Flor- ence, I sat in churches just looking at sculptures and frescoes. In museums, I marveled at the number of artists who had painted the scene with such depth, delicacy and power. Now these images of Mary, masterpieces from another age, stirred something vital within me. Writing these pages helped awaken me to their personal and symbolic meaning.

2 Seminar notes by Dr. Richard Naegle, Guild for Psychological Stud- ies, San Francisco, 1995. In St. John’s Gospel “Logos” refers to the eternal existence of the Word. See also Karen Armstrong, A Short History of Myth, p. 31. A Journey Through Art to the Feminine Self 3

Over many years of paying attention to images from my unconscious in dreams and in artistic works, I was beginning to “see” a connection between the image and myself. I had known that through the history of Christianity there have been two ways of interpreting images or symbols: the historical and the poetic or imaginative. I had been exposed to the historical or literal. Now I began to realize that the two are not mutually exclusive. Early Christians honored both approaches but the historical and literal gradually took precedence. In this view the Annunciation is something that happened in the past. In the poetic or mythic approach, we are not so much viewing an image as experiencing it. My personal experience and my study of Jung would open me to see the Annunciation not as history, but as something happening now.3 Taken in this way, the image reflects something within me. Like a dream, the image is happening within. Certainly this is not new, for mystics of every religious tradition are “seers.” And the early Christian Gnostics valued the inner knowledge of God, but they were regarded as heretics. The thirteenth century Dominican Meister Eckhart suffered a similar fate for expressing his beliefs that God and the soul are somehow united. One of Eckhart’s favorite sayings found in his sermons is that the Divine Birth is always happening. If it does not happen within our soul, of what value is it? This insight we find echoed in the writings of Angelus Silesius, a seventeenth century mystic, speaking of the Annunciation: If by God’s Holy Ghost thou art beguiled, There will be born in thee the Eternal Child. If it’s like Mary, virginal and pure Then God will impregnate your soul for sure. God make me pregnant, and his Spirit shadow me, That God may rise up in my soul and shatter me. What good does Gabriel’s ‘Ave, Mary’ do Unless he give me that same greeting too?4

3 Joseph Campbell, The Mythic Image, p. 58. 4 C.G. Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis, CW, Vol. 14, p. 319. 4 Re-Imagining Mary

Here the mystic part of us contacts that imaginal world that philosopher Henry Corbin describes as a world between the sen- sory and the spiritual, just as real as the world of sense and in- tellect. In this imaginal world something that is not us “comes to us as an ‘I’ and addresses us as a ‘you’.”5 Experiencing the image thus personally can initiate us into life altering change. Theologian Paul Tillich describes such a change. After spend- ing years in the trenches during World War I, he found himself one day in a Berlin Museum where he came upon a painting of the Virgin and Child by Sandro Botticelli. He writes: The moment has affected my whole life, given me the keys for the interpretation of human existence, brought vital joy and spiritual truth. I compare it to what is usually called revelation in the language of religion.6 Tillich’s experience speaks to the power of image. Many people have such experiences though they may never articulate how or in what measure the image changed them. Meeting Mary in Fra Angelico’s Annunciation jolted me into accepting, at least momentarily, that Gabriel’s “Ave” was ad- dressed to me, too. A numinous presence had “graced” me. Had I never experienced God’s presence before? I felt that I had. But this psychic/religious event opened another layer of “descent” to self and Self, (Jung’s expression for the God-image within us). I realize that my emotional response to the Annunciation image in that Zürich basement carried with it the seeds of further exploration into deeper realms. My soul “spoke” awaken-

5 Ann Belford Ulanov, The Healing Imagination: The Meeting of Psyche and Soul, p. 37. 6 Quoted by Marcus B. Burke, “Why Art needs Religion, Why Religion needs the Arts,” in Ena Giurescu Heller, ed., Reluctant Partners, Art and Religion in Dialogue, p. 148. Referring to the power of art, Jun- gian analyst Donald Kalsched quotes Michael Eigen: “At times, art or literature brings the agony-ecstasy of life together in a pinnacle of momentary triumph. Good poems are time pellets, offering places to live emotional transformations over lifetimes. There are moments of processing, pulsations that make life meaningful, as well as mys- terious. But I think these aesthetic and religious products gain part of their power from all the moments of breakdown that went into them.” The Inner World of Trauma, p. 126. A Journey Through Art to the Feminine Self 5 ing me to a life beyond the narrow boundaries of tribe, family and Church. My childhood religious faith served me by filling a need for assurance and security. As a young adult I had lived the rigors and beauties of life in a cloister: its silence, discipline, work, service and prayer. Yet I sensed at times that I knew nothing of God and less of myself! I was maturing, becoming more conscious. An important aspect of this maturing was sensing God in the depth of my soul. Jung’s theories helped me here, but for many years remained intellectual insights rather than experienced realities. Jung called the deeper dimension of every human being “a potential world, the eternal Ground of all empiri- cal being.”7 Of great importance in Jung’s development and the formulation of his theories was his dream of a two storied house recounted in his autobiography, Memories, Dreams, Reflections. The dreamer descends from the top floor furnished in rococo style. Each floor reveals older furnishings, the next lower looks medieval. A heavy door opens out to a stone stairway leading to a cellar. Here the dreamer discovers a floor of stone-block seemingly from Roman times. Descending to a still deeper level, the dreamer discovers a few skulls and broken pottery that seemed to represent pre-historic times. What an impression this dream made on him! Could these many layers refer to the psyche? Jung began to study arche- ology and world mythologies and symbols. As a psychiatrist working with the mentally ill and as a psychoanalyst in private practice, he began to note similarities of images in dreams and fantasies. He interpreted this to mean that in our soul’s depths there exists a layer common to each human being contain- ing remnants of how our early ancestors experienced life. The psychic “organs” on this level he called archetypes, energetic presences “engraved” on the soul. These are predispositions to respond in certain ways to life situations. Surely these instincts are stirred when we fall in love, when we witness a birth or a death. We are “moved.”

7 Mysterium Coniunctionis, CW 14, p. 534. 6 Re-Imagining Mary

At these depths we are one human family. This is the world of Oneness which Jung intuited as feminine, as inexhaustible fecundity. Priest theologian John Dourley writes that, by implication this soul or “matrix” can be called the Great Mother, the Goddess. For “in her numinous form it is she who creates, destroys and renews human consciousness, and who shapes the ground movement of human history, personal and collective, in her efforts to become ever more fully incarnate in it.”8 Symbolically speaking this “Ground” is feminine, ever renewing. This “matrix” is imageless, but she is symbolized as Great Mother, ocean, nature or soul. What qualities do we attribute to the “feminine?” In our daily life we describe our feminine nature as creative, fertile, caring and loving. Femi- nine power acts from compassion; it is receptive not control- ling, yet this power, when it is not respected, has a destructive side. Mother Nature can go on a rampage inflicting suffering and death. Does she take revenge when she is ignored? Another side of this destructive power appears as regenerative. Like the moon, the oldest symbol for the archetypal Feminine, fertility, birth, death and rebirth are mirrored in her waxing and wan- ing cycles. The Feminine often destroys old forms to make space for something new. Is it this stirring of the new that the feminine spirit is awakening in our search for new spiritualities? Does this mean a recovery and revitalization of the great psychic truths, the mythic images of our religious traditions? I believe so. The image of Mary as Divine Feminine continues to inspire millions as a Goddess figure, symbol of justice and liberation of the poor, compassionate Mother and Wisdom. The historical Mary needs to be recovered from a view that sees her as meek, weak and totally submissive to male authority rather than to her inner feminine authority. In her book, In Search of Mary, Catholic writer Sally Cunneen points to this broader approach to Mary:

8 John P. Dourley, The Goddess, Mother of the Trinity: A Jungian Implica- tion, pp. 46-47. A Journey Through Art to the Feminine Self 7

In looking for Mary we are looking for ourselves… Mary is not exclusively Catholic or Jewish, Western or Eastern, but a sign of what men and women can be when they participate in the ongoing mystery that links the divine to all that is.9 It is that mystery that I want to explore in these pages as I reimagine depictions of Mary. I approach them as life giving and strengthening images, for the master artists create from the unconscious depths and we meet that depth within ourselves. Thus, throughout this work, I will be shifting from the outer image or painting to the inner Source, the psyche, which, because of its limitless fecundity, Jung named Maternal. Jungian analyst John Dourley writes that it is the recovery of this inner depth, honoring it as the Great Feminine Source of All, which saves us from living shallow and inauthentic lives. This recovery “calls for a new spirituality (as a) re-rooting of the modern soul in its native divinity.”10 Jung has described our contemporary rootlessness as one-sidedly intellectual: But consciousness, continually in danger of being lead astray by its own light of becoming a rootless will o’ the wisp, longs for the healing power of nature, for the deep wells of being and for unconscious communion with life in all its countless forms.11 For when we become rootless, we lose our way. Certainly I was “losing my way” when I went to Zürich. What was I searching for if not for my “roots,” the connection 9 Sally Cunneen, In Search of Mary: the Woman and the Symbol, p. 24. Implied here is Mary regarded not only as historical but as archetypal (that is, she carries the energies of the Great Feminine, the archetypal Great Mother.) See Baring and Cashford, The Myth of the Goddess, pp. 554-5. Also see Andrew Greeley, The Mary Myth. 10 John P. Dourley, A Strategy for a Loss of Faith: Jung’s Proposal, p. 94. This is a heretical statement to those for whom religion is revealed by a transcendent God who descends into history. For Jung a God who wants to be so intimately united with the soul cannot be totally “Other.” Jung suggested that anyone who doubts that God is in the psyche, the origin of our metaphysical ideas and organized religions, should “take a reflective tour through a lunatic asylum.” (The Symbolic Life, CW, Vol. 18, par 1506.) 11 Symbols of Transformation, CW, Vol. 5, p. 205. 8 Re-Imagining Mary to my true spirit? Are not our religious institutions meant to be conduits of the Spirit, enabling us to recognize the incarnating God within? When they fail to do this, we feel weary, hungry, disoriented. Even the honored great images and rituals seem to grow sterile. And yet the Spirit is present, and often, while meditating on a well-known image, I feel that She imparts a new energy, reawakening something “dead” or “sleeping” in my soul. Perhaps in viewing the Annunciation image I felt a new possibility, an expectation that new energy would miraculously well up from within. I wonder how women who have been drawn to this image can enter into it so that it yields its treasures for each of us personally. How can we resonate to the image as a mirror of our life experience? And a key question for each of us, how can we free ourselves to reimagine the image, weaving a story more in tune with who we are? How can the Annunciation awaken us to ourselves fully human, made in God’s image, “temples” of God, beloved of God, loving our self? I began to see that reimagining religious images expands and enriches us, releasing life-giving water to quench our soul-thirst, deepening our faith in the spirit living within us. My reflection on the Annunciation image led me further into the mystery of God and the need for an epiphany of the Divine Feminine as a mirror of myself as woman. With no “sacred” female image how can women and men relate within themselves to dimensions of the archetypal feminine?12 Mary as Mother and Wisdom began to fill this need for me. I began to feel that in spite of a male dominated church, the traditional Christian symbols and images like the Divine Child or sculptures of the Black Madonna can be mined as treasures, for we inherit them from the great ancestral Soul. “When truly archetypal motifs and figures of tradition cease to be the objects of the devotion to which they have been attached for centuries, the afterglow can 12 Elizabeth A. Johnson, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse, pp. 61-75. See also Edward Schillebeeckx, Mary, Mother of the Redemption, pp. 101-28. The author suggests that maternal qualities of God need to find expression in the figure ofa woman, and that Mary as partner to Jesus reflects that dimension. A Journey Through Art to the Feminine Self 9 sometimes seem even brighter than the glow.”13 Reimagining and living from these energies ignites hope in a saving power within us, “an afterglow” that never diminishes. In this “afterglow” I have experienced moments when the historical Mary and the mythic or Cosmic Mary “came together” as I pondered the Marian images of Fra Angelico, Piero della Francesca and Frederick Franck. Contemplating the Black Madonna, I began to sense a creative feminine Spirit, not ab- stract and “above” but earthy, near and mothering. My attrac- tion to the historical Mary lay in her faith, her courage, and her strength. As a symbol, as the Cosmic Mary, she represents the Great Feminine, the Divine Feminine energies that I long to connect with under her titles: Queen of Heaven, Mirror of Justice, Mother of the Universe and Sophia Wisdom. Many years after my Zürich “experience” of Fra Angelico’s Annunciation I was able to view the original painting. Chapter One is a reflection on the image and a psychological amplifi- cation of the key figures or symbols found therein. Approach- ing the picture as if it were a dream or inner drama may help expand our self-knowledge and personalize the image. The Paradise story tells us that we are lacking in some way, alienated from our feminine spirit. Thus, psychologically viewed, the Annunciation image reflects our personal journey into wholeness. My Zürich experience led me to explore other images of the Annunciation and I still enjoy discovering new expressions of this scene in books, museums and churches. In Chapter Two, a “gallery” of favorites with personal associations and reflections shows how each depiction in its way receives and projects back to us something of ourselves, our desires, memories, longings. Before reading the reflections offered, it may be helpful for you to stay with the picture, meditating on its unique approach to the mystery of Annunciation as you imagine its meaning for you today.

13 Jaroslav Pelikan, Mary through the Centuries: Her Place in History of Culture, p. 165. 10 Re-Imagining Mary

Chapter Three, “Discovering Mother Mary,” was inspired by the icon, Virgin of Tenderness. My journey through the Annun- ciation image(s) led me to the recovery of Mary not only as Mother of God, a title from the Judeo-Christian tradition, but to Mother God, a title reaching back to an ancient longing for a Female Divinity. In western Christianity this Mary bears the titles and the qualities worshipped for thousands of years in the Female images of God and Goddess. These titles include Mary as Sorrowful One and as Primordial Mother. Recovering Mary both as light and dark Madonna plays a crucial role in humanity’s search for a divinity who reflects soul. In Chapter Four, “Imaging Mary as Temple” the temple motif is explored as the sheltering Great Mother. Piero della Franc- esca depicts the living Mary as temple in Madonna del Parto and Mater Misericordia. Frederick Franck’s The Original Face and the medieval Vierge Ouvrante suggest this motif as Mary both creates and “protects” the mystery of our common Origin. Franck’s inspiration for his sculpture of Mary (which he called an icon) is the Buddhist koan, “What is your original face before you were born?” Chapter Five, “Sounding the Stone Dream,” shows how a dream can unfold over years with both personal and collective meanings. The message in my “stone” dream is that collective and personal wounding in the feminine can be healed through a discovery of our divine/humanness. The dream dovetails with multiple levels of art as it reveals a guiding spirit within, the Self. In the Coda, “Recovering our Spirituality,” I return to some questions raised in this book: What is spirituality? What does it mean to grow spiritually and psychologically closer to the Feminine Self? How can we begin to see the “outer” image as a manifestation, a projection of the psyche? Can we be chal- lenged by being “betwixt and between” a male dominated Church without a recognized female divinity, where God is generally imagined external to the soul, and a more feminine depth psychological approach to the Marian mystery and to A Journey Through Art to the Feminine Self 11 the Feminine Self within us? Will we answer the call of the mystic within us? If so, how will we be changed? Artists plumb the depths of soul which Jung calls the collective unconscious, the inheritance of our ancestors’ psychic responses to life’s drama. In this sense the artist is priest, medi- ating between us and God. The artist introduces us to ourselves by inviting us into the world of image. We may enter this world to contemplate briefly or at length. Some paintings invite us back over and over again and we return, never tiring of them. It is especially these that lead us beyond image to the Great Mystery. 12 Re-Imagining Mary

Fra Angelico. Annunciation (ca. 1433) Museo Diocesano, Cortona. Revisiting Fra Angelico’s Annunciation

We need to go down into ourselves to find the meaning of the archetypal realities that the traditional symbols represent. Otherwise belief takes the place of our own creativity… we deprive ourselves of… that which wants to be born in us. —Elizabeth Howes

We should approach the original painting as if it were “a burn- ing bush in order to receive its aura,” writes literary historian Walter Benjamin.14 In 1998 when I traveled to Cortona, Italy, I eagerly anticipated experiencing the “aura” of Fra Angelico’s masterpiece. Here in this little town not far from Florence, over- looking the lush Tuscan countryside, I came closer to seeing that the image is to be aesthetically enjoyed and treasured. And further, it is not so much to be explained as to be lived, that is, as if one would discover the Annunciation event within oneself, like a dream. It is as if the Annunciation story reflects our own psychic life, its birth and maturing. It is as if God’s becoming and our own meet in a Virgin’s “Fiat,” empowering us both. While at Cortona, I basked in the beauty of nature and in Fra Angelico’s painting. To this day my musings on the Annuncia- tion and my delight in the Italian landscape remain fresh in my memory. On my first day in Cortona as I looked outside my window at the paradisal view below, I saw in the distance what appeared to be a monastery. Upon inspection I discovered not a monastery but a cemetery enclosed on three sides by massive stone walls. Each grave was decorated with colorful flowers that alto- 14 Walter Benjamin, Illuminations, p. 224. 14 Re-Imagining Mary gether made up one gigantic spring garden. Built into one side of a massive wall were hundreds of receptacles for urns, each decorated with large multi-colored bouquets. The dead seemed very much present like the subtle perfume of flowers pervading the quiet hillside. That afternoon as I approached the little museum that houses the Fra Angelico Annunciation I again found this motif of death and rebirth. On a roped-off pedestal beneath the painting stands an intricately carved octagonal marble baptismal font. I was reminded of the pre-Christian alchemical symbolism that through immersion in water (“death”) the neophyte rises to a new level of life. In Christianity the neophyte is “cristified” as child of God. And there above the baptismal font hangs the Annunciation representing the Feminine mystery of new birth. Unlike my first meeting with the image in Zürich, I did not cry outwardly, only inside. The image seemed to breathe life into me, a life welling up from far beyond the artist’s time or place. Standing before the painting, I realized that Mary and the angel are so dominant that I had hardly noticed Adam and Eve leaving Paradise. They appear in the upper left hand corner, in miniature compared to the central figures. No doubt Fra An- gelico was influenced by an earlier artist, Giovanni de Paolo, whose Expulsion and Annunciation was meant to show the cause of a disobedience that resulted in the birth of a Savior. The two scenes are related artistically in Fra Angelico’s work by the angel’s magnificently detailed and colorful wings which extend through the portico into the garden. Thus the painting expresses the belief in the incarnation of God in Jesus who would save us from the effects of the Fall. The Eden story “explains” why we feel alienated from our roots, why we long for wholeness often expressed as a longing for Paradise. The familiar Eden story recounts how God forbids Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of good and evil. When the serpent approaches Eve saying that she will not die, but rather, will become like God, she eats the fruit and offers it to Adam who eats. Discovered in their crime, they must leave for earth. On earth men would labor by the sweat of their brow and women would Revisiting Fra Angelico’s Annunciation 15 bear children in pain. On earth women were to be subject to men. Was the serpent to blame for it all? Or was it Eve? Given the traditional Christian interpretation of Eve as bad, “the dev- il’s gateway,”15 and Mary as good, is it possible to arrive at a more holistic view of woman? There are other versions of the story, interesting and imaginative, kinder to Eve. In Mark Twain’s “Diary of Adam” Eve is described as an experimenter. Adam writes, “She has taken up with a snake now. The other animals are glad, for she was always experimenting with them and bothering them; and I am glad because the snake talks, and this enables me to get a rest… I advised her to keep away from the tree. She said she wouldn’t. I foresee trouble. Will emigrate.” Eve’s curiosity is a main theme in her “diary.” She writes, “Some things you can’t find out; but you will never know you can’t by guessing and supposing: no, you have to be patient and go on experimenting until you find out that you can’t find out. And it is delightful to have it that way; it makes the world so interesting.” In Twain’s view Eve was the first experimenter, and her curiosity brought us to higher consciousness.16 Another refreshing story of Eve was told by Rachel Naomi Remen in her story, “Grandmother Eve.” As a child Remen listened to her grandfather rabbi describe Eve’s life of ease in the Garden and the one prohibition God imposed—that she not eat from “the Tree of God’s Wisdom.” Curious Eve gave in to the snake’s persuading and ate. Far from dying, she absorbed God’s wisdom, becoming free, enlightened, and more conscious.17 When Remen asked her grandfather why God had forbidden Grandmother Eve to eat of the tree in the first place, knowing that she would disobey, he paused before answering this dif- ficult question. Of the many images of God in the Bible, all of them needing our scrutiny, some present Him as loving and compassionate, others as angry and destructive.18 15 Tissa Balasuriya, Mary and Human Liberation, p. 141. 16 Mark Twain, “Extracts from Adam’s Diary,” in The Unabridged Mark Twain, Vol. 2, p. 527. 17 Rachel Naomi Remen, Kitchen Table Wisdom, pp. 273-276. 18 Ibid. 16 Re-Imagining Mary

Many of us have not listened to a story that presents Eve or the serpent in such a positive light, as an awakener to new life. I first heard this interpretation many years ago at a seminar on the Bible in San Francisco sponsored by the Guild for Psychological Studies. When Dr. Elizabeth Howes, director of the program and a Jungian analyst, suggested that the serpent could be viewed as another “side” of God, I was shocked. Wasn’t God all good and Satan (evil-serpent) all bad? Certainly at that time my religious world view needed broadening. Insights from depth psychology awakened me to unexplored depths within images and dogmas of my Catholic tradition. One such insight from depth psychology sees the Garden of Eden as representing the original totality or “Womb” from which our ego evolves, separating itself from the original “matrix” to become an entity. The birth of consciousness entails the loss of the original unity and causes pain and a sense of guilt. During this separation from the “womb” the ego continues to be supported by the Self, the center that gives us a sense of order and meaning. This fall into duality places on us the burden of making choices, taking responsibility for them. Psychologically speaking, the forbidden fruit represents consciousness. The serpent, revered by some early Christian sects, symbolizes a force urging birth and growth.19 Viewing the story as a “fall” into consciousness, it was necessary for Adam and Eve to leave the “Womb” of Eden. Thus there is no sin, no one to blame. Following this insight I find Eve an attractive catalyst for growth, for moving out of the Paradisal “womb,” for becoming conscious. Fearful at first of risking punishment from God the Father, Eve takes the plunge, and knows that she has lost the security of the enclosed Garden. She and Adam become real, aware. They are naked. Separated from a state of unconscious unity, they must now experience their new capacity to choose between what they consider good or bad. Choice implies the ability to discriminate. The angel directs them to earth to discover more fully what their life means. Going to earth is not

19 Edward Edinger, Ego and Archetype: Individuation and the Religious Function of the Psyche, p. 189. Revisiting Fra Angelico’s Annunciation 17 punishment; rather earth is the place to experience freedom and choice, beauty and suffering, to create and to love. Thus the two scenes in Fra Angelico’s Annunciation, the Fall and the Annunciation express separation and union. In one image Adam and Eve separate from God, a kind of death; in the other, Mary and the angel hail pregnancy and new life. May Sarton’s poem expresses this death-life paradox:

In this suspense of ours before the fall, Before the end, before the true beginning, No word, no feeling can be pure or whole, Bear the loss first, then the infant winning; Agony first, and then the long farewell. So the child leaves the parent torn at birth. No one is perfect here, no one is well: It is a time of fear and immolation. First the hard journey down again to death Without a saving word or a free breath, And then the terrible annunciation: And we are here alone upon the earth.

The angel comes and he is always grave. Joy is announced as if it were despair. Mary herself could do nothing to save, Nothing at all but to believe and bear, Nothing but to foresee that in the ending Would lie the true beginning and the birth. And all be broken down before the mending. For there can never be annunciation Without the human heart’s descent to Hell And no ascension without the fearful fall. The angel wings foretold renunciation, And left her there alone upon the earth.20

Bear the loss first, as the child leaves the parent. It seems like a death, this separation and this journey. The “true beginning” comes only after the fall and the descent to earth. Going to Mother Earth (Gaia) was the next step in the un- folding of the human/divine drama. The angel’s annunciation

20 May Sarton, “Annunciation,” in A Grain of Mustard Seed, p. 61. 18 Re-Imagining Mary does not seem joyful. It foretells more renunciation. The poet seems to speak here both of Mary’s future renunciation of self and of Jesus’ death. Yet in this is found the paradox of true beginning and birth. Aloneness seems to be a pre-condition for both. Mary’s “Yes” and our own “Yes” to God must be said within the solitude of our heart. Without it and its accompanying sense of vulnerability and limitation, there is no annunciation, no destiny greater than one could have imagined—bearing the divine within. Sarton weaves overtones of the mythic death and life motif that threads through all human life. The depth psychological insight into the Eden story as a “fall” into consciousness, a kind of “death” issuing in new life echoes the Fall and Incarnation theology expressed in Fra Angelico’s painting. For me this double lens approach to the dogmas enriches understanding and experience of the profound spiritual truths they hold. Without a bridge between our soul and religious images and dogma, the latter remain external and no longer energize us. We project our inner drama to the dogma or image (e.g. Virgin Birth) and see it only as external to our soul.21 Looking at Fra Angelico’s An- nunciation figures as inner energies may help to build a bridge from dogma to inner individual experience. Viewing some of the figures in the painting from a psychological perspective, what might they represent as spiritual energies within us now? As messenger from the deep unconscious, the angel may bring comfort and challenge; the serpent may stir desire for choice at the risk of disobedience to rules that stifle our spirit. Might Eve be the risk taker in us and Adam the fearful one? Might the Virgin be that part in us open to the healing feminine that mends the split between body and spirit and frees the parts in us still in bondage? The dove, image of transformation, energizes and inspires our creative potential. In Fra Angelico’s painting it hovers well above Mary’s head closer to the portico ceiling where God the Father, framed within a circle,

21 Ann Belford Ulanov, The Feminine in Jungian Psychology and in Chris- tian Theology, pp. 119-123. Revisiting Fra Angelico’s Annunciation 19 looks down at the scene. In our soul, we can imagine the great dream maker fashioning our night images looking on as well. I have referred to my early meeting with Fra Angelico’s painting and my tearful response. The image carried some mystery within my soul that I resonated with but could not own. Revisit- ing the painting, I began to explore the figures trying through associations and amplifications to uncover fuller ancestral or archetypal meanings. Like dream images the figures become symbols opening to another level of understanding; they unite what we know about ourselves and something unknown within our psyche. Viewing the serpent, Mary, Eve, Virgin, dove and angel in this way expands consciousness and can help us to personalize the images.

The Serpent

Let us begin with the serpent. In Fra Angelico’s Annunciation we see Adam and Eve expelled from Paradise, the serpent having lured them into sin. Symbols can have many different meanings and this is particularly true of the serpent. It is both an earthy watery creature and a spiritual wisdom image. In the story of Grandmother Eve the serpent is a teacher of Wisdom. The wisdom of the Delphic oracle was spoken through the serpent priestess.22 Serpents are symbols of immortality, renewing by shedding their skin. Viewed psychologically, the serpent as a symbol of fertility can represent the collective unconscious. Jung thought that snake dreams often indicated a straying from our instinctual roots. Thus the serpent is related to body and to healing. I first came in touch with the meaning ofthe serpent as healer while I was a student in Zürich. A friend and I decided to take a tour of the ancient Greek centers of healing, among them Kos, Epidarus and Delphi. We had no intention of person-

22 Barbara G. Walker, Woman’s Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Ob- jects, p. 387. bibliography

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Many thanks to all who have directly or indirectly granted permission to quote and display their work, including:

The Gnostic Religion by Hans Jonas. Copyright © 1958 by Hans Jonas. Reprinted with permission of Beacon Press, Boston. G.M. Hopkins, God’s Grandeur and Other Poems, Ed. Thomas Crofts. Used by permission of Dover Publications, Inc. 1995. “Annunciation”, from A GRAIN OF MUSTARD SEED by May Sarton. Copyright ©1971 by May Sarton. Used by permission of W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. 157

Images

Cover. Boštík, Václav. The Virgin and Infant Jesus, (Oil on cardboard 50 x 30 cm.) Photograph © National Gallery in Prague, 2008. 1. Angelico, Fra (1387-1455). Annunciation. Museo Diocesa- no, Cortona, Italy. Photo Credit: Scala / Art Resource, NY. 2. Bruyn, Bartel. The Annunciation (16th Century) Rheinis- ches Landesmuseum, Bonn, Germany. 3. Raymo, Ann. Annunciation, c.1960 (charcoal on paper) by Ann Raymo (fl.1960) Private Collection/ Photo © Boltin Picture Library/ The Bridgeman Art Library. 4. Dürer, Albrecht. The Annunciation, c.1526 (pen and ink). Musée Condé, Chantilly. Photo © The Bridgeman Art Library. 5. Tanner, Henry Ossawa. The Annunciation. Philadelphia Museum of Art. Purchased with the W.F. Wilstach Fund, 1899. 6. Armenian Manuscript 17th Century, Annunciation (motif). British Museum, London. © British Library Board, Picture no. 1022251.341. 7. Poussin, Nicolas. The Annunciation, c.1657. Photo © The National Gallery Picture Library, London. 8. Parmigianino (Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, Italian, Parma, 1503-1540), The Annunciation, ca. 1523+1540; Oil on wood 33 3/8 x 23 1/8 in. (84.8 x 58.7 cm): The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Gwynne Andrews Fund, James S. Deely Gift, special funds, and other gifts and bequests, by exchange, 1982 (1982.319) Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 9. Duccio (di Buoninsegna) (c.1260-1319). Annunciation of the Death of the Virgin. From the upper section of the Mae- sta altarpiece. Museo dell’Opera Metropolitana, Siena, Italy. Photo Credit: Scala / Art Resource, NY. 10. Dali, Salvador. Annunciation 1956 (Ink) © 2008 Salvador Dali, Gala-Salvador Dali Foundation / Artist Rights Soci- ety (ARS), New York. 11. Warhol, Andy. Details of Renaissance Paintings (Leon- ardo da Vinci, The Annunciation, 1472), 1984. Founding collection, The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburg. © 2008 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts / ARS, New York. 158 Re-Imagining Mary

12. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519). Annunciation. Post-clean- ing. Ca. 1472. Oil on wood. 38 5/8 x 85 3/8 (98 x 217 cm). Uffizi, Florence, Italy. Photo Credit: Scala/Ministero per i Beni e le Attivita culturali / Art Resource, NY. 13. Virgin of Tenderness. Original icon by Angelos (c. 1600), Byzantine Museum, Athens. Photo Credit: Mel Mathews. 14. The Black Madonna of Einsiedeln by permission of Fa- ther Dr. Odo Lang, Librarian, Benedictine Abbey of Our Lady of Einsiedeln / Switzerland Photo: P. Damian Rut- ishauser. 15. The Madonna of Rocamodour. Freedberg, David. Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response. Chi- cago. © University of Chicago Press, 1989, p. 28. Photo by Author. 16. Dormition de la Vierge, Chartres Cathederal. Photo Credit: Editions HOUVET. 17. Piero della Francesca (c.1420-1492). The Madonna del Parto (Virgin with two angels). ca.1460. Fresco, 260 x 203 cm. Post-restoration. Cappella del Cimitero, Monterchi, Italy. Photo Credit: Scala / Art Resource, NY. 18. Piero della Francesca (c.1420-1492). Polytych of the Madonna della Misericordia. Photo: George Tatge, 1993. Pinacoteca Comunale, Sansepolcro, Italy. Photo Credit: Alinari / Art Resource, NY. 19. Vierge Ouvrante (closed). c.1400. Wood and polychrome. Western Prussia/Germany. Inv. Cl. 12060. Photo: G. Blot. Musée National du Moyen Age - Thermes de Cluny, Par- is, France. Photo Credit: Reunion des Musées Nationaux / Art Resource, NY. 20. Vierge Ouvrante (open). c.1400. Wood and polychrome. Western Prussia/Germany. Inv. Cl. 12060. Photo: G. Blot. Musée national du Moyen Age - Thermes de Cluny, Paris, France. Photo Credit: Reunion des Musées Nationaux / Art Resource, NY. 21. Original Face (closed). Variation on 15th c. Ouvrante by permission of Claske and Lukas Frank. Photo: Luz Piedad Lopez. 22. Original Face (open). Variation on 15th c. Ouvrante by permission of Claske and Lukas Frank. Photo: Luz Piedad Lopez. i n d e x

A Belting, Hans Likeness and Presence 80 Adler, Gerhard 33 Benjamin, Walter The Living Symbol 33 Illuminations 13 alchemy 132-133 Berry, Patricia Alexander 27 “What’s the Matter with Moth- Amaterasu 85 er?” 52-53, 129-130 Amun 28 Black Madonna 2, 8-9, 49, 71, Aphrodite 30, 109 82-86, 88-89, 110, 114 Apollo 74 of Einsiedeln 73, 82, 86, 89, 93 archetypal feminine 8 Black Virgin 73, 84, 87-89 Aristotle 21 of Rocamadour 73, 87-89 Armstrong, Karen 2, 126 Boff, Leonardo A Short History of Myth 2, 126, The Maternal Face of God 112 Artemis 80-81, 97 Botticelli, Sandro as Moon Goddess 97 Virgin and Child 4 of Ephesus 80 Bourgeault, Cynthia Asklepios 20, 74 Mystical Hope: Trusting in the Asper, Kathrin 135 Mercy of God 143 The Abandoned Child Within Bruyn, Bartel 135 The Annunciation 21-22, 28 Athena 25, 80 Buddha 26, 46, 86, 133 Burke, Marcus B. B “Why Art needs Religion, Why Balasuriya, Tissa 15 Religion needs the Arts,” 4 Mary and Human Liberation 15 C Baring, Anne 7, 21, 25, 29, 52, 74, 83, 96-97, 119, 131, caduceus 20-21 134, 139-140 Campbell, Joseph The Divine Feminine: Exploring C.G. Jung and the Humanities the Feminine Face of God 139-140 Throughout the World 25, The Mythic Image 3, 24, 26 119, 139 Casey, Thomas G. 44 Baring, Anne and Jules Cashford Humble and Awake: Coping with The Myth of the Goddess 7, 29 our Comatose Culture 44 Barker, Margaret 100-101, 122 Cashford, Jules 7, 21, 29, 52, 74, On Earth as it is in Heaven 100 83, 96-97, 131, 134, 140 The Great High Priest 101 Ceres 81 The Revelation of Jesus Christ Chartres Cathedral 49, 84, 88 122 Chatzidakis, Manolis Barnstone, Willis Byzantine Museum 75 The Other Bible 49 Cicero 80 Becket, Thomas 88 Coakley, Sarah 33 Beguine movement 147 Powers and Submissions: 33 160 Re-Imagining Mary

Collyridians 96 Drury, John Condren, Mary Painting the Word: Christian Pic- The Serpent and the Goddess 21 tures and their Meanings 52 Confraternity of Santa Maria Duccio di Buoninsegna 60-61, 63 106-107 Dürer, Albrecht Conzelmann, Hans Annunciation 35, 38-39, 41-42 “The Mother of Wisdom,” 109 Corbin, Henry 4 E Craighead, Meinrad Earth Mother 49-50, 52, 74, 95 The Mother’s Songs: Images of Edinger, Edward God the Mother 96 Ego and Archetype 16, 29, 40, Cunneen, Sally 125 In Search of Mary 6-7, 23, 57, Eiseman, Fred and Margaret 89-90, 96, 103, 120 Sekala & Niskala 41 Cybele 59-60 Eliot, T.S. D Collected Poems 49-50 Eostre 66 daemon 32 Dali, Salvador 63-67 F Daly, Mary Feast of Mary’s Nativity 91 Beyond God the Father 26 Fiorenza, Elisabeth Schüssler da Vinci, Leonardo 67-69 Sharing Her Word 120 Day of Atonement 100 Fra Angelico v, 1, 4, 9, 12-14, 17- Delphi 19, 74, 80, 127 19, 24, 35, 38, 57, 140, 143 Delphic Oracle 19 Franck, Frederick 9-10, 94-95, Demeter 50, 73-74, 84, 90-91 102, 115, 120-123, 125, Dillenberger, Jane 137-138, 140, 145 The Religious Art of Andy Warhol Art as a Way 138 69-70 The Original Face 10, 102, 120- Divine Child 8 122, 125-126 Divine Feminine 6, 8-9, 25, 50, The Supreme Koan: Confessions 60, 74, 85, 107, 119, 125, on a Journey Inward 145 136, 138-140, 143, 146 Franklin, David Divine Mother 50, 73 The Art of Parmigianino 57 Dourley, John P. A Strategy for a Loss of Faith: G Jung’s Proposal 7, 148 Jung and the Religious Alternative: Gaia 17, 52, 129-130 the Rerooting 148 Galland, China The Goddess, Mother of the Trin- Longing for Darkness: Tara and ity: A Jungian Implication 6 the Black Madonna 84-85, Drewermann, Eugen 89 Discovering the God Child Within Gentle, Judith 28 Jesus Redeeming in Mary 92 Druids 49, 88 Index 161

Giovanni de Paolo I Expulsion and Annunciation 14 Gnostic 23, 40-41, 86, 111, 115, Inanna 25, 52, 90, 108 122 Irenaeus 91-92 Gnostic Gospels 111, 115 Adversus Haereses 92 Gnosticism 86, 112 Ishtar 25, 91, 95 Gnostic tale Isis 25-26, 30, 83-85, 90, 108-110 “The Hymn of the Pearl.” 40 Great Mother 6-7, 10, 20-21, 48, J 50, 71, 83, 95, 101, 106, Jaffe, Aniela 128, 132-133 115, 118, 130, 134 Johnson, Elizabeth A. Gustafson, Fred She Who Is 8, 33-34, 73 The Black Madonna 83-84, 89 Jonas, H. H The Gnostic Religion 40 Jung, C.G. Hadewijch of Antwerp, 147 Aion 147 Hadewijch: The Complete Works Alchemical Studies 94 119 Analytical Psychology Seminar 34 Harding, Esther Answer to Job 146 Women’s Mysteries: Ancient and Memories, Dreams, Reflections 5, Modern 136 100, 132 Harrison, Barbara G. Mysterium Coniunctionis 3, 5, 94 “My Eve, My Mary.” 23-24 Psychology and Alchemy 145 Harvey, A. Psychology and Religion 63, 113 The Divine Feminine: Exploring Symbols of Transformation 7 the Feminine Face of God The Spirit in Man, Art, and Litera- Throughout the World. 25, ture 54 119, 139 The Symbolic Life 7, 147 Hathor 25 The Visions Seminars 79 Hermes 21, 57, 58 Juno 66 Hildegard of Bingen 99 Hillman, James K The Force of Character 124, Kalsched, Donald Hollis, James The Inner World of Trauma 4 Finding Meaning in the Second Kandinsky 81 Half of Life 149 Kassel, Marie Holy of Holies 100 “Mary and the Human Psyche” Hopkins, Gerard Manly 110-111, 136-137 144 Kristeva, Julia God’s Grandeur and Other Poems The Kristeva Reader 106 111 Horus 26 L Howes, Elizabeth 13, 16 “Hymn of the Pearl” 32, 45, 124 Layard, John The Virgin Archetype 25 162 Re-Imagining Mary

Lightbrown, Ronald Sophia Wisdom 9, 110, 114, Piero della Francesca 9-10, 101, 134 103, 105-106, 115 Sorrowful Mother 73, 89, 91, Lundquist, John M. 114 The Temple: Meeting Place of Sorrowful One 10, 94 Heaven and Earth 101 Temple v, 10, 99 Lusseyran, Jacques Virgin Mother 2, 25-26 “Jeremy” 78 Wisdom Sophia 2, 94, 102, 109, 125, 133 M Matthews, Caitlin Sophia, Goddess of Wisdom 84 Manteau-Bonamy, H.M. May, Rollo 53 Immaculate Conception and the McFague, Sallie Holy Spirit: The Marian Models of God: Theology for an Teachings of St. Maximilian Ecological Nuclear Age 108 Kolbe 112 Mechthild of Magdeburg 147 Marduk 96 Meier, C.A. 20, 74 Markale, Jean Soul and Body: Essays on the Cathedral of the Black Madonna: Theories of C.G. Jung 20 The Druids and the Mysteries Meister Eckhart 3, 147-148 of Chartres 88 Menninger, Karl The Great Goddess: Reverence of “Hope” 66 the Divine Feminine from Mercurius 133 the Paleolithic to the Present Mercury 21, 58 59-60, 74 Merlin 133 Mars 66 Merton, Thomas Mary Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander Assumption of 112-113, 146 27 Mary as Mircea Eliade 66 Dark Mother 114 mirror 8, 77-78, 83, 85, 125, 131, Divine Feminine 6 138, 140 Divine Wisdom-Sophia 108 Misericordia 10, 101, 104-107, Face of God 112 111, 115 light and dark Madonna 10, Monk Kidd, Sue 140 The Secret Life of Bees 113 matrix of a new creation 137 Moon Mother 97, 135-136 Mirror of Justice 9, 85, 140 Mor, B. & Sjoo, M Mother and Wisdom 8 The Great Cosmic Mother 50 Mother God 10, 21, 79-80, 96, Mother 115, 135 longing for 135 Mother of God 10, 79, 94, 96, Murk-Jansen, Saskia 104 Brides in the Desert 119 Mother of the Universe 9 Primordial Mother 10, 73, 94 N Queen of Heaven xii, 9, 96-98, 104, 113, 122, 135 Naegle, Richard 2 Index 163

Narcissus 77 R Nelson, Gertrud M. Here All Dwell Free 24 Raphael 81 Neumann, Erich Raymo, Ann The Great Mother 70, 115 Annunciation 30-31 Norris, Kathleen Remen, Rachel Naomi “Annunciation” 41 Kitchen Table Wisdom 15 Reuther, Rosemary R. 21 O Rizzuto, Ana-Maria The Birth of the Living God 93 O’Connor, Flannery Robinson, John “A Temple of the Holy Ghost” “Very Goddess, Very Man” 112 108 Rocamadour 73, 86-89, 93 Osiris 26 Rothenberg, Rose-Emily Our Lady of Guadalupe 107 The Jewel in the Wound 131 Rumi 59, 119, 143 P Pagels, Elaine S The Gnostic Gospels 111, 115, Sarton, May Pandora 59 “Annunciation” 17-18, 41 Parmigianino 56-57 Schillebeeckx, Edward Pelikan, Jaroslav Mary, Mother of the Redemption Mary through the Centuries 9 8 Persephone 90 Schiller, Gertrude 28 Philo 21 Sedes Sapientia 88 philosopher’s stone 128, 131 serpent 14-16, 18-21, 23, 40, 145 Piero della Francesca Serpent Goddess 20 Madonna del Parto 9-10, 101- serpent priestess 19 103 Shearer, Ann Mater Misericordia 9-10, 101, “On the Making of Myths” 141 104-106, 115 Silesius, Angelus 3, 94 Piggott, J and Bedrick, P. Sophia Japanese Mythology 85 “Stone of Exile” 137 Plato 27 St. Augustine 41 pomegranates 103 Stein, Murray Pope Benedict XIV 118 “Individuation: Inner Work” Pope Pius XII 112 138 Poussin, Nicolas 37, 51-52 Sulevia 88 prostitute 59 Susano 85 Pythagoras 27 Suzuki, D.T. 124 Pythia 74 T Q Tammuz 91 Quan Yin 106-107, 138 Tanner 37, 43, 45-46 Queen Maya 26 Tao Te Ching 139 Tara 84-86 164 Re-Imagining Mary

Teilhard de Chardin Y “Pensees” 150 “The Eternal Feminine” in The Yeats, W.B. 125 Prayer of the Universe 125, “The Mass on the World” 144- Z 145 Zeus 80-81, 90 temple at Delphi 74 Teresa of Avila The Interior Castle 131 Tibetan Book of the Dead 63 Tillich, Paul 4 Twain, Mark The Unabridged Mark Twain 15 U Ulanov, Ann Belford Primary Speech, A Psychology of Prayer, 79 The Feminine in Jungian Psycholo- gy and in Christian Theology 18, 54, 130 The Healing Imagination 4 Uranos 52-53 V Vierge Ouvrante 10, 102, 115-123, 125-126 Virgin of Tenderness 10, 73, 75- 76, 80, 83, 89, 93, 138 W Walker, Barbara G. Woman’s Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects 19, 49, 55, 66, 78, 97 Warhol, Andy 35, 67-70 Warner, Marina Alone of All Her Sex 27 Whore of Babylon 135 Winnicott, Donald “Narcissism and the Search for Interiority” 77-78 Wisdom-Sophia 93, 108, 114 Fisher King Press is pleased to present the following recently published Jungian titles for your consideration: Farming Soul isbn 978-1-926715-0-18 Patricia Damery The Sister from Below isbn 978-0-9810344-2-3 Naomi Ruth Lowinsky The Motherline isbn 978-0-9810344-6-1 Naomi Ruth Lowinsky The Creative Soul isbn 978-0-9810344-4-7 Lawrence H. Staples Guilt with a Twist isbn 978-0-9776076-4-8 Lawrence H. Staples Enemy, Cripple, Beggar isbn 978-0-9776076-7-9 Erel Shalit Re-Imagining Mary isbn 978-0-9810344-1-6 Mariann Burke Divine Madness isbn 978-1-926715-0-49 John R. Haule Resurrecting the Unicorn isbn 978-0-9810344-0-9 Bud Harris The Father Quest isbn 978-0-9810344-9-2 Bud Harris Like Gold Through Fire isbn 978-0-9810344-5-4 Massimilla and Bud Harris The Art of Love: The Craft of Relationship Massimilla and Bud Harris isbn 978-1-926715-0-25 Learn more about the many worthy publications available for purchase at www.fisherkingpress.com In Canada & the U.S. call 1-800-228-9316 International call +1-831-238-7799 spirituality/psychology/art

“Mariann Burke has undertaken the remarkable and urgent task of grounding one of the major icons of Christian history, Mary. She plants Mary side by side with her ancient sister colleagues: Isis, Kali, Demeter, Tara and others, revealing Mary’s ancient roots. This reading is critical for the 21st century since, through Mary, one expression of the Femi- nine archetype, matter can again be seen as divinized and the idea of incarnation pushed solidly into the matter of all things. Re-Imagining Mary is really re-imagining ourselves as women and men giving birth to God in newer and more relevant ways today. It is reimagining not only our own personal soul’s journey but also the deep sacredness of the soul of the world itself.” —Fred Gustafson, author of The Black Madonna.

“In this beautiful book, recounting her personal journey of discovery, Mariann Burke offers us her awakening to the experience of the Feminine. We follow her as she encounters and responds to images of Mary which hold meaning for her: Mary as Virgin Mother, Mary as Mirror, Mary as the Compassionate Sanctuary for suffering humanity, Mary as Temple, Mary as Black Madonna and Divine Wisdom. Through her contemplation of these images, she leads us deeper into an understanding of the Feminine and into unexplored dimensions of the soul. This is a book to savor and return to often.” —Anne Baring, co-author of The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image.

“This fascinating and energizing book is the fruit of the author’s travels, study, contemplation, and personal experiences. I heartily recommend it to anyone who wants to begin or continue to face self, death, pregnancy in its various modes, and spiritual creativity. Using her readings of Marian paintings and sculptures, from Fra Angelico to Warhol and Franck, Burke explores the Divine Feminine as a powerful force in the past, present, and future.” —Jane D. Schaberg, Professor of Religious and Women’s Studies, University of Detroit Mercy, author of The Resurrection of Mary Magdalene.

Mariann Burke, RSCJ, is a Jungian analyst living in Newton, MA. She holds graduate de- grees from the University of Pittsburgh, Andover-Newton Theological School and the C.G. Jung Institute in Zürich, Switzerland. She is on the faculty of the C.G. Jung Institute, Boston.